This past Monday, a February holday in Ontario, was sunny & the outdoors inviting. My BF (keep ‘em guessing, is it best friend, or is it boyfriend? does one even use either of those terms as a 50-something? I digress) & I went down to the water front off of Lakeshore. I’ve written about going there before. But trust me in winter, one is less inclined to venture forth. Usually an ugly cold dismal & grey wind-whipping  awaits. I go to clear my mind, hoping some of the flotsam & jetsam, art insecurity & philosophical questioning will get swept away along with tumultuous mess of fine curly hair, otherwise known as the nest on my head... Yes! It was warn enough to be hatless for a minute or two, until toque (pronounced TEWk for non-quebecers & new canadians) time.

And the walking & the glorious clear sky & real sun were like manna from u-no-where & then afterwards sitting in large wicker chairs no less, in a not too delicious but absolutely perfect cafe, with the truly hot sun now pouring into the front window on the north side of gritty Queen, was like some kind of healing ceremony, a mystical walk alone into the woods for gentle self reflection & strengthening... An OM moment. Freedom from the stresses of art production, I put my head back like a happy seal basking in the glory of a full'o'fish belly on hot sand.

Some of us undoubtedly wander into the woods of an art career with more sense of self & marketing ability than others, let’s say. I even know some, or one. Not this cookie. I am prone to crumbling, setting out for healthy ingredients & giving into white sugar & all-purpose but no-good-purpose flour. I am a kitchen sink cookie, everything but the bath water. A disabled by panic clunker of a cookie. Will they rise?  a what did I forget(?) kind of cookie & will they be edible(?), or do you suppose, maybe taste good... Successful cookies?

I, apparently, am a worrying home-made cookie, with some kind of alcohol soaked fruit bits, which may or may not be a good addition.

So a walk in the sun, listening to clucking CDN geese, re-visiting lapping lake water, sun-glassed, toqued head to the big sky. Therein lies promise & cleansing.

Adjective: much/məCH/
A large amount: "I did not get much sleep"; "he does not eat much".
Adverb: To a great extent; a great deal: "did it hurt much?".
Synonyms: adjective.  many - considerable adverb. very - greatly - many - highly - a lot of - plenty - far

Noun: lug·gage/ˈləgij/
Suitcases or other bags in which to pack personal belongings for traveling.
Synonyms: baggage - impedimenta

Yummy word impedimenta.

In my youth I owned a well constructed backpack, which I purchased before my obligatory rite of passage trip to Europe, first by plane, then by thumb, with great naiveté.

I have never owned anything that could be referred to as luggage, never mind good luggage. Though I have in my possession 2 suitcases that you can tilt onto wheels, unmatched, in 2 colours, in 2 sizes; small & smaller.

Art valuing is not about size. And yet, size does creep in to evaluating.
What is intrinsic to the artist, the matière, the statement, the method is ‘much’. Just as ‘much’ can be invested in a small piece as a big piece.
What does ‘much’ refer to?
How ‘much chocolate ice cream would you like?  see?

MUCH is about history, learning, experience, thought, ideas, instinct, even intelligence & talent, all these things that an individual artist brings to art making.

Total Side Note: Online Dating: ‘Men/Women with ‘baggage’ need not apply’.
Hell, without baggage I may as well be dead. I embrace my baggage.
So when I decide to make a small work, it is never as small as all that.

Working big is a room with a view.

Say for instance you were stuck in a basement and there was one slit you could see light coming from - your eye would be glued there, or on the shaft of light. You would be compelled to look out of that small window, whatever the view. If that window lead to the outside, the whole world would be there. see?

I have been interested in what film making could be for a while and wanting to try my hand at filming. Where would my eye stray? Would the expression be an artistic event or a documentary endeavor? What do I have to say? How would I edit such a filmic happening. What can’t I say with paint, charcoal, clay, a space changing installation...

To that end I made a small first attempt with a look at myself in the studio using a Blackberry pad to film, (where awkwardly there is no way to actually completely see where one is precisely focussed, beyond a general direction & learned habit). So I let the learning curve begin. Earlier this week I, with one hand surgically-gloved, paint brush in hand, spontaneously grabbed the ‘film pad’ with the other hand, turned it on and began to talk to an unspecified audience, one interested in the art process, mine in particular. The gall.

I described what I was doing with a smaller work in progress. I then showed other works in the series lining the studio floor. I had no idea what I was going to say, had not really thought out in advance what I was aiming for, & in addition had not quite described to myself, what was going on in the pieces. What I had actually achieved with the series was just allowing myself to make them, to follow the pull of desire in that uncensored direction. Sometimes allowing a thing to happen is the biggest challenge as an artist, especially as one facing an artistic deadline. There’s an inner voice that says, get on with it! Produce work for the booth, the gallery, the deadline. A holymoly bad way to go! At least for my creative working spirit.

Then I perched on my stool & watched the film, all 3:37 minutes worth.The epiphany (an overused word if ever there was one)...the AHA moment of the experience revealed more than I could have possibly predicted. In fact I had predicted nothing beyond trying an idea out. 

Instead what I saw was an articulate woman, explaining what these works were about, what may have lead to them, what I was interested in by making them. Someone grounded, knowledgable, quite sure of a direction. Pensive and in control, able to explain in a concise manner what was aimed for. This is an astounding & at this point profound way of ‘seeing’ one’s self and 'hearing' one’s thoughts.
Oh that’s who I am...

It brought me back to myself, provided cognitive content on some of the work oriented towards my booth at The Toronto Artist Project. Not the work I was riffing on for the film to be precise. Other small works that I had hatched as a preemie idea, which ultimately need more gestational time. And I finally admitted to myself, was not what I should be doing. I was blocked and ignoring that block, unhappily disengaged & pushing forward towards a deadline.

Watching myself, listening & hearing my own words brought me back like a kite gently to the grass, the solid ground, the path. I scrapped a whole body of work which needs more time to develop, laid it to rest for now. Turned around & there I stood.

A studio may be just one room but you can get lost there. And apparently found.

Tuesday is the day I regularly post. So today, here I am.

I showed up. And I have nothing to say. What I do have is work to do. Work that I am eager to connect to, & move forward on.  And I do have a blog-bone I'm chewing on... a thought bubble, brain static, but not a real word in sight.

Digestion: I will digest all the varied components that ping pong inside my head as I work and live. Then be back with a post.

Sometimes the only way to move through an art moment, which could mean hours, days, or more, is in action. At other times; contemplation.

I am thinking & working with idioms and what they look like, mean & suggest.  There's deep metaphor on many levels. Are Idioms the paradigm of what we do to each other?

id·i·om

   [id-ee-uhm]  

noun

1.

an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket  or hang one's head,  or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round  for the round table,  and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

2.

a language, dialect, or style of speaking peculiar to a people.

3.

a construction or expression of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total structure or meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language.

4.

the peculiar character or genius of a language.

5.

a distinct style or character, in music, art, etc.: the idiom of Bach.

Toronto is grey. Small sharp sleet is falling from the sky after yesterday's mop wet rain.
I have now used up all the vegetables (see salad above) & will venture forth to shop a little later.
This was a week of a few reckonings. The business end. The frightening, gobsmacking, overwhelming business end, the tedium side, the tortured limit, the squeamish factor, the bitter edge...(that otto do it) of the Art Business.  I have received my directions.

What an artist must do (otherwise known as what an artist must spend, after acceptance & paid booth rental) to be in wonderful juried Toronto Art Project: must get/organize/apply-for/fax-in/email-request/apply-online-for:
Electricity for booth,
Lighting for booth,
Insurance; stuff & personal liability,
Debit/credit card machine, along with obligatory HST number (though I am a registered business)
Internet connection for booth (scratch that - extortionist fees)
Truck to move in & out,
Helpers (Santa, you there?)

kachingkaching.
However. I am grateful. I am healthy. I am strong. I am mindful of my good fortune. I can do this.

I asked a friend the other day, out of the blue, if there was a moment in his life of life-altering decision making, a swirling epiphany on which he experienced change, & how so?
He thought for a while (Dvorsky your damn questions!) and answered something that I had so truly not foreseen, because it was such a brilliant answer that today I still chew on it, mulling it over & examining his wisdom. The point of the exercise to be clear was not what transpired to have you make a life-course decision but, what was the change or decision that came about?

He answered: " I took responsibility for my life."

I was amazed. What had I expected? Probably something more like, to read science magazines, to spend more time with my kids, to eat less sugar, to practice a musical instrument. Not this profound answer full of optimism & insight. Quasi mantra-esque, it evoked something in me, a whole head-spinning category of being in the world.

I make decisions to eat raw vegetables, to pull out my yoga matt, to meditate, to invite a friend over, to go for a jog, to buy ‘green’; those are all taking responsibility too of course. But in a much broader sense, this talks of something entirely different. Who do I want to be in the world?

Responsible.

Experimentation was a dirty word when I was taking my undergrad degree in Fine Arts. Exploration, experimentation implied fooling around, not knowing where you were going, being directionless, not having anything to say, being weak & rudderless. So ready or not many of us committed to a way; painting, printmaking, illustrative work, abstract work, video work, whatever.

What called our names was to be in art school. And of course people naturally fell into, went towards a style & a medium with which to  tell their story. What was never considered in any class I took was the concept of ‘play & learn’.  Art was/is a serious business & one had to get on with it, declaring that voice, a concept, & deeper than that a raison d’etre. Anything less than declaring that found voice & you were considered to be in the wrong field.

Play & learn sounds like a concept Fisher Price came up with for the toddler set. I am glad to have very slowly turned to my inner toddler once again in the past few weeks. Years past graduation, years into my real world & self.

We have turned everything into work & judge ourselves and those around us on good work habits. We work out in the gym. We work at perfecting downward dog. We work at improving our self-discipline in food choices, exercise habits & money matters. We work on ourselves relentlessly.

In Thi Chi, my instructor urged us to ‘play Thi Chi’.

The past few weeks have not been artistically satisfying. I have been experimenting with a variety of approaches to painting & graphite on paper, with the purposeful intent of making some smaller works (there’s that word again) & producing more back to back pieces, as opposed to hanging around in front of a full body canvas for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks or more.  My ultimate comfort zone is size,  being energetically engaged by standing & moving, (maybe because I can hide there). So engaging in producing more small works is a huge challenge for me as a transition into the unknown, at least not recently known .

But out of that play, experimentation & exploration, allowing myself to go there, something has transpired. which I could not have foreseen. Therein lies the happy event, the mystery of where we might land if we give ourselves a chance to play & learn.
I copied styles other than my own, chuckled at the results & tossed them aside. I have done battle with several paper sizes in an attempt to find a landing spot for a series, & through that process I have come up with a whole new project. One that I know I cannot devote a lot of time to right now, because of my upcoming involvement in The Toronto Artist Project, March 1-4.  One which will come into play later & I know, find breath & light.

I do not reject the premise of work. On the contrary when I’m fully involved in my work, I can barely see the bigger picture of life. But I embrace aimlessness as method too. Not knowing exactly where one will end up, the giving up of control, doesn’t go against good daily habits. It feeds them though there is a rickety ladder missing several rungs to climb along the way.

Now I have that stupid jingle in my head; Play Laugh, Learn.

Am I the animal(s) or the zoo keeper? A bit of both undoubtedly. unruly-me. Or is this tiger we speak of free to wander, to slink, to kill or be killed, to sleep deeply in the shade swatting flies whilst cubs suckle at her teats, with one ear & eye alert to danger?

I’m taking a class. It is to do with discipline. It is called The Path of The Tiger: Discipline in Your Writing. The discipline of showing up & being there for yourself, to do the work, to make things happen. Ostensibly it is about writing. But I know there are no untouched parts of life when one engages with spirituality, creativity; making & doing. And looking at procrastination in it’s many coloured paint blobs.

 I look forward to the journey. The timing is right, the instructor, I learned last night at the first of 4 intense classes, is completely right. The process is right. I am open, aware & ready for just this class. It is good to have new paths, outside connections, a differing perspective to bring to a body of work.

I meant to blog about sky and I will, but had to mention the newness of this course because I have a pre-sense of it’s implications in my life as a sometimes zoo-living tiger, who strives to be free on a plain. Note to self: read about the Buddhist (I believe?)origins of ‘path of the tiger’.

I thought about how to paint ‘sky’ this week. In a new way, non-traditional, non-representational, but still connected to sky. I didn’t want to get tight and anal about sky & grey-bottomed clouds, or thick white ones you can take a bite out of.

Standing in my studio I closed my eyes & decided the best thing to do was feel sky. See in my head all the skies I have known and gazed into.
-clean Mediterranean Skies, full of bright southern light.
-north African skies, mysterious light grey tones
-Ontario skies over my uncle’s plant farm, shunting clouds over rolling hills, full of childhood hope & glory
-watery loose Laurentian clouds against lavender sky, reflected into the lakes & crusty snow of Quebec
And then there was that massive BIG sky I reached out to as to a life preserver in a suburb, during my children’s early years. Living there was wrong for me. My eyes would raise from the perfection of their young faces, and gaze out above the rooves of that cultural desert knowing that one day I would cast off, fly straight up & out.

Eventually in slow motion, opportunity & the undertow of flat-field wind rising, I lost my footing, grew wings, & now am other.
I am born in the year of the horse, perhaps I should be wary of the tiger. But no!
I say bring on the tiger.

It is -15c & something considerably lower with windchill. I turned on my heating this morning & over night the duvet was good.
I am grateful for both those simple in Canadian terms, things.

2012 is here.
That number had me reflect on how long I’ve been here on the planet. Long.
I’m quite chomping at the bit to get on with a new body of work, on paper for this winter. Referencing the abstract paintings of the past few years, but inward towards smaller gesture, more measured action. And oddly the readable figure beyond text & marks may make an appearance.

I am newly excited about the cinema and movies(!), having seen & heard of a few which catch my fancy for future viewing. I saw Wim Wender’s ‘Pina’, about German choreographer Pina Bausch & came away excited & charged. Though I pondered & was troubled at the traditional romantic male-female pairings/gender roles which seem to be what this film shows of her dance, or is it  Wim Wender’s choice for the film, her most noted works?
As a much learned new friend said briefly in an email;  “in the movie, it seemed she mostly choreographed duets that were sort of romantic/seductive. Very little of her wry sense of humour, the radical use of language, etc. ... I think she completely deconstructed the romantic (in) Cafe Mueller.”

I would have loved the wry humour & radical use of language! But still, as a pretty much Pina newbie, I was swept away by the camera work, even the 3D-ness of it, which is astonishing as 3D generally means to me, a technology in process, and a story-line that needs the attention of special effects. 3D-Pina was utterly different from that.
As far as I’m concerned we need more stage work turned into film. It’s a powerful tool to extend & serve acts of dance among others. Of course give me good seats to live dance any day!

Superb choreography, the interesting provocative sets(dirt, water, a cafe scene full of chairs & tables), strong individualistic dancers, the costume colours which I turned a painter’s eye to (took issue as a feminist with the long ball gowns she saddled her female dancers with, but believe those to be part of her critique? To be much researched.

I love dance for so many reasons; the combination of the inherently visual, the power of music & theater along with the strength, grace & action of the human body; costumes, sets, locus, story, married to artistic choice/ideas/politics & the emotional presence of excellent dancers...

I came away well-fed. Turned on & ready to confront my own art output. That strikes me as a great way to start a new year, even if they usually start in September... let’s call this Part B.

I repotted a gift plant today too & intend for it to live on, despite my less than green thumb.

I am waffling. On a different planet now, other time zone, different views, spaces, places, people & dare I say: Energy. It is delightful to be here, but in the tunnel of change I have found myself unable to step back & articulate the nature of this transition.

I am interested in what is collected to take back. And realize I cannot begin to comprehend with face up against the glass, my breath clouding the vision. I came to understand, a few years ago, that NOT making art, is not equivalent to NOT being an artist. I am a hunter gatherer, and know that I am anxious to gently walk into a new body of work.

Soon.

Not yet.

After the complications & curfuffal (i'm sure that's a word, right?) of Christmakuh & being close to some I love dearly, I shall pick up brush to paper to paint & write again.

Thankfully on this planet is an excellent yoga studio, where there is deep stretching, some chanting of OM, and occasional enlightened laughter. There are runs on back roads with many a splendid & breathtaking views in most directions. And the locals are kind & polite.

And there are Organic 73% chocolate bars, with blueberries!!

Namaste & a bientot,

Love, Norma

Happy Hanukah!

Dearest Blog-Readers,

Am out of country & had intended to blog away...

until I ate a wee something that disagreed with all of my apparently deeply held principles. So just like in the scary movies, the wee something returned!! Drumming it's drums, banging on pots, scuffing up clouds of smoke, barking & howling at the midnight moon, and rumbling in the jungle, that is me.

So now I'm on the mend, which is good. I am surrounded by big beauty which may feed my visual art seeking self, fluff it up, or numb my brain into freeze-dried stillness.

I hope to report on which, one day, should be Tuesday next.

Feels good to get away, or it will soon.

Love, Norma xo

In preparing for my current show, on until Thursday (Dec 1) at Galleria 814, I made one painting that really is directional for me. It is as stripped down as I would like my work to be at this time, minimalist, well-balanced, loaded with monochromatic colour and the drawing that mark making & words in graphite bring to my work.  (Palabras Amarillas, the ‘yellow’ piece)

I immediately felt that I had reached the kind of statement I wish to make, addressing not only colour and painting but my personal references, and somewhat odd for a forward looking person; the Abstract Expressionists, along with feminist discourse & art making of the 80s & 90s.

My work is conceptual at birth, but this piece represents where I have been wanting to go, an equilibrium.  I seek a kind of meditative state in my work, channeling stillness, and simplicity. Most complexity lies beneath the colour or skin, like a set of blue veins under the epidermis of my hand.
A map to a field of dreams.

I woke up this morning and began to think about my next body of work as linked to the above. I lay there thinking in terms of (again) language.
‘Speaking in Tongues’ came to mind, as a theme, keeping to my thoughts about having something to say & painting/visual art as a tool, gift, celebration, exploration... but also the idea of misunderstanding, miss(ed) communication, incomprehension.
I said “this” but what did you hear?
you said “that”, but what did I hear?


Googled ‘speaking in tongues’:

“Speaking in tongues is the New Testament phenomena where a person speaks in a language that is unknown to him.  This language is either the language of angels or other earthly languages (1 Cor. 13:1).  It occurred in Acts 2 at Pentecost and also in the Corinthian church as is described in 1 Corinthians 14.  This New Testament gift was given by the Holy Spirit to the Christian church and is for the purpose of the edification of the Body of Christ as well as for glorifying the Lord.
There seems to be three divisions in the use of tongues:  First, a private prayer language that is not interpreted; second, a language that is interpreted -- this defines proper usage in the Christian congregation; and third, missionary context -- that is, it appears in the context of evangelism where people (in the New Testament) are presenting the gospel.”

My third division:  The traditional notion of speaking in tongues’ translating to, not being seen or heard. And, speaking heads, poetry readings, Rap, conceptual art, video art, abstract painting, as well as all the sexual subtexts of ‘speaking in tongues’, in an (over?) sexualized era.
The incomprehensible.

Language is a great signifier of difference.  I recall my relationship to language & place, traveling alone in Italy a few years ago. Despite the effort of a beginner’s class in the language prior to taking that trip, I constantly felt cut out of the loop of understanding & of basic information exchange. Thankfully I could order wine & did so at the end of every day(!), opting for either a quarto (1/4 litre, so civilized) de vino rosso or bianco (or un becchiere, glass). I moved throughout the country in a bubble, emerging for the shared language of visual art. The Italians rumbled & cajoled & gesticulated around me, even the children at city bus stops wildly telling their cell phone tales with no degree of privacy, et moi; pas un mot de comprehension.

A stranger in a strange land. Like my parents who spoke multiple languages & so many immigrants arriving here as adults, fully other. I have been alternately plagued by the curse of otherness or intrigued by the mystery & possibility, and the braveheartedness of otherness, all my life.

I grew up in a partially shut out world. The purposeful shutting out by grownups, as they told secrets, said private things, gossiped in their several tongues, leaving the children, myself, 1 sibling & some of my cousins, out. We understood it was not for us, and from today’s perspective, maybe not to do with secrecy, but more to do with relishing the ability to share who they had been in the pre-past, a comforting zone.

Though it also conjured up a massive dark cloud of a secret. The pre-past being pre-war, pre-death camps, pre-upheaval. The speaking of English, their 4th, 5th? or more, language (& beyond; culture, climate & ways), marking at least me, as other. I have often said my mother tongue was ‘broken English’.

Now Spanish has become ours as a family, with my oldest son married to an Argentinian. I embrace the cadence & music of the language. I marvel at my own flesh & blood son speaking those excited exclamative or dulcet tones, exchanging pleasantries, private romanticism... the language appeals & beckons.


It may be that there is an incompleteness inherent in any text or words used in visual art, but like spoken language, the mostly obstructed use of text in my work offers the viewer a moment or more of deeper investigative purpose, with the possibility of moving away from passive reception to a more personal search for meaning, though it’s not intended in a prescriptive manner.

I think about ‘communication’ being the pivotal connection to my work. It is perhaps when examined further, more to do with being, perceiving, & comprehending otherness. Not original, but mine nonetheless.

And if you want to stay on the coloured surface that is fine too. Salut, au revoir, hasta pronto, addio, búcsú...

Dear Toronto,

I live in you, but Montréal lives in me. Montréal Mon Amour, comme Hiroshima Mon Amour de Marguerite Duras, who I met in this city years ago. She impressed me then, arriving for the Independant Film Festival, older petite woman, slightly hunched, intellectual French gaze behind glasses, with her much younger waif thin, blond & handsome lover Yann, fluttering about her like an adoring butterfly.

I can only barely remember her film, something to do with Vietnam? A man & a woman meeting at an empty train station? It was my moment of Betty Goodwin discovery, a powerful personal surge of recognition burst a capillary in my growing art head & heart. Her stunning awkward drowning swimmers, twirling around the smallish gallery. Pressing in on me with inspiration & crazy attraction. They didn't speak to me. They whisper yelled at me.

Now here visiting my first born & his Argentinian wife. An unusually sunny & golden beginning of November. The winding staircases are all made of air & the 3rd story apartments they lead to, all made of clouds & cigarette smoke - built on a foundation of lacquered paté et pain integrale.

The streets are damp, filled with the smell of spongey leaves recalling a school day's collection, carefully picked up by the stem then placed into a metal lunchbox on my way home. Opening the metal clip, it sprang back to the metal box; ping. A whole childhood in that box. The leaves joining with remnants of scrunched wax paper smelling of Hungarian salami on rye. I hid my daily sandwich from the other children - ate hunched over - dreaming of white bread & peanut butter, white breadwhitebreadwhitebre...please.

Hope to see you soon,

Love, Montréal

p.s. am bringing truffles

My show opening was last Thursday evening. Thankfully I was too busy meeting & greeting to answer questions regarding the paintings, having succumbed to blithering idiot-hood by that evening.

But the question of meaning & what drives the work came up so here I am blogging an answer to those I could not give one to.

A central theme of mine is communication, the nature of information (whatever it may be) exchange & the hierarchy of knowledge.
I look at how language (verbal & body) refers to one aspect of communication. Language often acting as a paradigm of our place in the world. As an extension to issues of language I use text; text as rhythm, as information & poetics. The rhythm of life; breathing, music, etc. And, text as a method of delivering meaning, thought, explicative.

A few years ago, someone mentioned to me that they had used a cottage on Lake Simcoe. I had never been there. I googled Lake Simcoe on a map of Ontario, only knowing that it was north of my adopted city of Toronto. Lake Simcoe became one more place I’d never been among thousands, and a metaphor for all I do not know in this age of information. It began to stand in as a list for life experiences; from adventures not had, people unmet,(on a street poster today I saw ‘love unspent’, which tickled my fancy) books unread, etc.

I reflected on how so many of us delve verbally, into areas which we do not know, have opinions about things we have not experienced, pronounce pronouncements! I began to think about a set of fictitious instructions to places I’ve never been, languages I do not speak (like reading bad translations of VCR instructions), & cultures I have little understanding of beyond difference.

Back to painting! The text is a freeing device, anchored in my having something to say. Colour and the application of paint is the poetry & passion of a piece. Colour and the action required in painting is sentiment, representing the journey, taking me as the painter somewhere I need to be, & potentially the viewer to a non-specific new place.  The colour & brushstroke are the ‘de-intellectualizing’. Colour, paint, brush marks, blur the map, obstruct the instructions & bring the self in through bodily action. Ultimately there is no ‘there’ to get to. Each painting is be here now.

Painting is a language. Art making is language making. Visual art is a method of speaking, declaring & communicating… and it can be ‘Greek to me’.

How do I (post-montrealer abashment) embrace if not love, Toronto? Let me count the ways:
 

Bike. Bike down Strachan to Lakeshore, then along the strung-out lake front trail, peddling west through well-tended parkland, squawking lake-gulls & brazen Canadian Geese (all settling here? Go south you foolhardy big birds), over a bridge, below the bridge, slightly up, tilting down, pushing hard on the ups & joyful cruising on the downs. Lakefront, winding dirt trail through some marshlands, along the Humber river, chill wind in my face, sweat on my back.

Art. This weekend(for example); Toronto International Art Fair showcasing galleries, Montreal, NYC, this city, London, Bucharest, Barcelona & more. I found some work both solid & soothing. Handed out my postcard to several galleries; chill wind in my face, sweat on my back.

Queen Street West, my neighbourhood. Crowded, tattooed, pierced, rude & lively, energetic & sweet, sad & strong; a motley crew & the ashtray of Toronto.

Stores with clothing & sultry boots calling to my empty wallet.
Foods I can’t afford but enjoy knowing are there; cakes, oysters, cheese, bunches of flowers (take that Bougainvillea filled walls of warmer land).

Art galleries galore.

Enough espresso to throw us all into a heart-pounding rage.
A local community centre set in the park; swimming pool, tai chi, pilates, ping pong, a running track, babies, children, free daily newspaper. Trinity Bellwoods, a United Nations of picniking, cycling, walking, music-playing, ball&frisbee throwing, people. Spotted last winter; 2 police officers on horseback, running their horses in the field, playing.  Many dogs, small/big, happily running with gummy balls in mouths and squirrels blasting in all directions.

Home. South facing window & doors to a Juliet Balcony, sun infusing the afternoon, through cloud & fall-chilled air, & me hanging slightly over the rail, sniffing it in, head slowly turning from east to west & back. Sighting, between forefinger & thumb but clear, an angel in the distance, about to take off from Prince’s Gate, hovering over the water announcing potential glory.

Then a cup of tea & home made stove-top popcorn. Perfect finger food while reading a good book on the sofa, the wandering crane hand finds it.

• Blog Home
• Archives
• Subscribe To This Blog

• Make it & they will come. Or not.
• Much Luggage
• expect the unexpected
• quiet times
• The Grey and Thoughtful Days of Winter 2012
• Play and Learn
• Zookeeping & The Path of The Tiger
• Wim Wender's Pina
• new planet
• sick day?

• Day to Day [6]
• Art Industry [8]
• General [1]
• Painting [6]
• The Eggshell Project [1]
• Language(s) [2]
• Regarding Art Theory [1]